Midheaven

( After Ai Ogawa )

I could hear you, breathing      
around the next curve;          
I followed, toward the turret—        
its spiraled throat carved out      
to swallow my steady ascension          
until I was nothing        
but an insect, s p i n n i n g          
without one of its wings—        
clockwise. . . upward;          
each turn identical—        
stone-walled scenery        
around a columned spine        
of ribbed-steps          
until I reached its ingress.          
         
Have you ever entered          
the wind's wildest of hearts        
in the middle of its mountain caravan        
and felt everything at once—        
         
Om Mani Padme Om. . .        
I have arrived.          
         
Midheaven, ecliptical—her eastern        
ascension and western descension          
joined at meridian's intersect:        
neither heaven nor earth—          
yet, somehow, familiarity          
opens memory's gate          
to the known unknown.        
You become a Goddess, looming        
over all you rule below;        
Creation, tiny dwellings        
upon buried layers, all bones—        
alive and gone, dreaming          
amid earthen tombs.        
         
There are no skyward secrets—        
the Gospel of Truth          
whips attachments from you        
one by one: a handkercheif  
to shield tears. . .       
a ribbon from your hair        
becomes a multicolored standard—        
a banner of letting go;          
your thoughts, weathered          
as the fortress beneath you,          
now understand how easy        
it would be        
to fall—        
         
unify living and dying as one.          
         
Being human can be unbearable;        
we scale the highest heights possible          
to breach Death's distance—        
until forced to descend        
into the dungeon of Life        
because we're still breathing;        
         
or, that is what I felt you murmur        
in the language of wind       
as you brushed by: Go Live;        
my 'kerchief, spanning interspace—        
an insect, s p i n n i n g        
without one of its wings—        
clockwise. . . outward;          
my ribbon, a kite's tail        
having loosed its string        
         
spiraling into the skyline        
where only the dead survive.          
~